


Home.

by sornsae



Series: stucky aus [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Also cliché romance at time, But the ending isn’t..., M/M, Sad, The Notebook found dead in a ditch!!, War AU, You’ll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sornsae/pseuds/sornsae
Summary: World War 3 has arrived. After seven years of a picture-perfect romance, everything is as risk when Bucky leaves to fight.





	Home.

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually a fic I wrote ages back when I wrote fics for another fandom, but I liked this one and thought I’d revamp it for stucky! it’s based on the poem “A Wife In London” and you can find the old fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8286586)
> 
> warning: this fic is sad but it doesn’t end sadly just be warned im a trickster

**Part I - The Tragedy**  
  
  
  
2021.10.26  
  
  
  
Steve sits in a tawny vapour: the clouds of Montreal cling to the city's buildings like a cold bedsheet. It’s cool in his apartment too—the sky offers no warmth or security. Looking outside, he watches the blurred stars barricaded behind paper-bag mists and wonders if Bucky can see that same sky too.  
  
  
  
Where is Bucky right now?  
  
  
  
Steve wouldn't know. He receives letters once a week at most, usually on a Monday after Bucky has written over the weekend—not that the weekend means a break for the younger man. Perhaps Bucky is stationed in Japan? Maybe even China? Steve remembers he was stationed in Hong Kong about seven months ago after receiving a letter describing the wonders of the city's lights. Well, Hong Kong was bombed three months after, thankfully Bucky had moved on to a base in Fukushima by then.  
  
  
  
The last time Steve saw Bucky was four months ago when he returned home briefly after being stationed in Washington.  
  
  
  
That had been...June. Yes, and a warm June it was. Steve remembers sitting by the window like usual, this time with a wonderful beam of light projecting against his cheeks. He likes warm days. Summer. Any heat to keep him cosy like Bucky's arms used to. Steve remembers falling into a sort of trance until a frantic knock sounded against his door. He had jolted upright suddenly, so fast he pulled a muscle in the side of his neck that ached for hours afterwards. It never mattered. Steve is only ever used to two different knocks at his door: Sam, or the postman. Sam usually brings news, he is a little more communicative and up-to-date with the world than Steve. And the postman—he brings Bucky's letters.  
  
  
  
So it was natural of Steve to slip off the windowsill so fast with those two being his only visitors. He ran to the door, neatening his hair habitually, and slid the lock across so he could greet his visitor. It had all happened so fast afterwards.  
  
  
  
"Babe?"  
  
  
  
_Oh_. This wasn't expected.  
  
  
  
Before him stood Bucky, long, loose hair dropping down past his face, sharp jaw and stubble, neck thinner than it used to be. Still perfect, still beautiful. Uniform: roughly hanging on his body. His shoulders had widened out...with age? Steve couldn't tell. He looked tired, dark bags under those dark blue eyes. Bloodshot. But breathtaking. His thick eyelashes fluttered once and then he began to cry, and Steve only had to blink a single time before he himself began to weep. Bucky ran forward and lifted Steve up into the air. It had felt free. Like...like...  
  
  
  
...like, just for a fleeting moment, Steve didn't have to act so strong anymore.  
  
  
  
"Bucky. Bucky." At that moment he had had no words, nothing but Bucky's name forming at the back of his throat, sliding from his tongue with ease. Bucky was his home and he'd finally returned. "Bucky, I-I..."  
  
  
  
"I know, babe, I've missed you so much. I miss you everyday and I love you so much."  
  
  
  
Steve choked back another sob, burying his face against Bucky's shoulder. "I love you too. I fucking...I love you, I love you."  
  
  
  
Bucky brought a hand to Steve's wet cheek and cupped it gently, bringing him closer and closer until their lips caught again. They kissed for a long time, so long it felt like hours were passing, days and nights, years, orbits; Steve relished Bucky's taste after so long without him. He felt so good, Bucky biting at his lip and sucking marks into his neck. Sighs and moans echoing around them.  
  
  
  
Bucky removed his uniform and took a short shower, desperate to be back with Steve. And when he returned to the bedroom he found Steve wonderfully spread out on the bed for him. Steve and Bucky usually had sweet and tender sex, but that night Bucky pressed him against the headboard and fucked him hard into the wood, drawing out Steve's moans and filling him up where he had long left empty. Steve came hard, Bucky following after. They kissed and then did it all over again—softer the second time.  
  
  
  
"I'm only here for one night, I'm so sorry." Bucky pressed another kiss to his temple afterwards when they were lying warmly in bed. Steve melted against him once more. With Bucky’s weight loss Steve was no longer half his size, they were growing equal. He traced his fingers up and down Bucky’s metal arm as if searching for something, some part of it that could feel. His favourite part to touch was where it met his real shoulder, and the scars of a traumatic blast had left map lines stretching out to his neck and chest.  
  
  
"I thought that might be the case.” He paused to formulate his words. “Bucky, I worry so much. You out there on the frontline. God, stay safe. Please. I miss you enough when you're alive...I-"  
  
  
  
"Steve, love. I'm not dying." Bucky pulled Steve into his lap and ran his fingers through his hair, soothing him. "I think about you everyday. You keep me going. When the war is over at Christmas time I'll return home and kiss you like this every single day."  
  
  
  
Steve wondered, quietly, if it was selfish of Bucky to make a promise he might not be able to keep. He closed his eyes and let Bucky's comforting heartbeat lull him into slumber.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
2021.10.29  
  
  
  
This autumn is a cold autumn; Steve has to resort to waiting in his usual place with a blanket messily wrapped around himself. He hasn't moved much over the past two years. He just...  
  
  
  
...waits.  
  
  
  
Unless there is something else to do: eating, sleeping, cleaning. Some days he forgets about those simple things, and finally remembers only when his stomach growls demonically, or the windowsill carries a thick layer of dust. In empty moments like this, Steve reflects on the happy days with his lover. They'd met back in the December of 2014, a year that was forgotten in the grand scheme of things. But Steve wouldn't forget. Was there war then? Steve can't remember those details, not when he and Bucky hadn't anything to do with conflict at that time.  
  
  
  
He remembers how it all began. Steve - whose train had been delayed nearly two hours - shivering at the station in his thin coat. He was crouched in the corner by a wall, holding his knees in a tight clutch. It began to rain, icy and freezing in the winter air. He'd let out breaths but they seemed to crack halfway, heavy wisps of white leaving his lips. The rain hurt, everything hurt, and really there were worse situations but he couldn’t imagine anything worse in that moment.  
  
  
  
"Hey, hey kid, it's freezing out here, what are you thinking!"  
  
  
  
Kid? Steve huffed. He was a few days away from turning twenty-one! He took a look at the man only to find he was young and very handsome. The way those deep-set eyes looked down at him made him feel a few degrees warmer.  
  
  
  
"Train. Delay."  Two words were a good enough explanation. Hopefully the man would understand.  
  
  
  
The young man bit his lip and reached out a hand for Steve, sweetly. "Come on, I'll give you a lift home."  
  
  
  
Nowhere in Steve's mind did he think about how far away he lived from where they were in Montreal. He'd stayed with Sam for the weekend and he was supposed to be back in Brooklyn now. He took the stranger's hand anyway and let himself be lifted up. The boy held him tightly, throwing a coat over his shoulders and walking him to a small car. They got inside and despite their damp clothing it was a million times better than outside. Steve forgot all morals about not getting into stranger's cars. He was nearly twenty one.  
  
  
"Bucky Barnes." The man informed, smiling beautifully and switching on the heating. It took a few minutes to warm up, and Steve watched carefully as Bucky rubbed his hands together while they waited.  
  
  
  
"S-Steve...Rogers." The car wasn't warm enough. His teeth were still chattering. Bucky reached behind them and grabbed a thin blanket, folding it and placing it over Steve's cold hands.  
  
  
  
"Where do you live, Steve? I'll take you home as fast as I can."  
  
  
  
Steve had then realised the situation he was in. "Shit. Brooklyn."  
  
  
  
"Brooklyn!"  
  
  
  
"Yeah, sorry..."  
  
  
  
"No, no, it's fine. Stay at my apartment tonight. I'll give you food and clothing, and you can get the train tomorrow when you've warmed up. Unless you-"  
  
  
  
"No, uh, that sounds..." Steve paused and sniffled, cold nose and sore throat, "...brilliant. Thank you, honestly. Thank you so much."  
  
  
  
Bucky and Steve drove in a sort of comfortable silence with the radio playing quietly in the background. Bucky hummed as he drove and Steve listened to every sound he made. They arrived and once inside Bucky let him take a warm bath and lent him some fresh clothes. Steve broke the silence properly later when they sat together on Bucky's small sofa, eating and watching television, though he doesn't remember what he said.  
  
  
  
Whatever it was he said that day he hopes Bucky at least remembers, because it was probably then that they started falling. Those forgotten words are written somewhere, not in Steve's mind but in his heart, and that's enough. He fell. In love.  
  
  
  
With Bucky.  
  
  
  
And as far away as his lover may be now, he has those words engraved in his soul and even after death they'll continue loving so long as the words are never erased.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
2021.10.30  
  
  
  
Steve wakes with a jolt.   
  
  
  
He's fallen asleep on the window ledge again. Outside it looks like it's the middle of the night but he can't really tell. In this late October, darkness could mean six p.m. or six in the morning too. A key turns in his door suddenly but he doesn't flinch. It's Sam, of course, the only one of his two visitors with a key. His only friend who didn't go to war for the country, like Steve. In the eyes of the government they are two weak, weak men.  
  
  
  
But Bucky told Steve to stay. The war will end soon. He'll be home and Steve will feel his warmth again. Yet, for two years, Bucky has promised he'll be home by Christmas. Two Christmas' have passed now. How many more might pass until his return? Steve slides off of the window ledge, as he always does when a visitor arrives. Living through a war like this means always being on edge. Waiting and pining and wondering and preparing. But no one knows a thing, how could they? And how can anyone fully prepare themselves when you just don't know? You have to pray, whether you're religious or not, because entrusting a force that you don't even know exists is easier than trusting a planet filled with nothing but hatred and despair. Hope, he thinks, is stronger.  
  
  
  
"Steve..." Sam’s voice echoes through the apartment, shakily, and Steve hurries towards him. "God, Steve, have you seen the news?"  
  
  
  
Steve flinches only then.  
  
  
  
It's a kind of fear that is rather indescribable. Almost as if time stops, the entire process of life just...pausing. No longer does the sun rise and fall and no longer does the tide wash away the shore. It's like the mist just dampens and suddenly—  
  
  
  
—emptiness.  
  
  
  
"W-What news?"  
  
  
  
Sam runs over and only then does Steve see the tears that glisten on his cheeks, capturing the muted lights of Montreal. Everything feels unsafe. Dangerous.  
  
  
  
"Clint was...he was stationed in Kyoto...I..."  
  
  
  
Steve doesn't understand. How can anyone understand war? War sometimes feels like an abstract noun. A feeling. A sort of...rage. You'd have to be on either opposing side to really empathise. So Steve can't feel anything, not when he just doesn't care. He only cares about Bucky’s safety.

  
  


"Shh, Sam, breathe." What a hypocrite. He can barely breathe himself. "Take it easy, Sam, I can't have you having a panic attack. Breathe."  
  
  
  
Sam sits down beside Steve on the window ledge, and Steve lets him into the blanket. Artificial safety. Abstract, like war, is protection. It's a feeling, but right now no one is truly secure. Steve threads his fingers through Sam’s short hair and asks him to follow his breaths. Four seconds per inhale, four per exhale.  
  
  
  
He feels it once more.  
  
  
  
Falling.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
When you meet someone new, there are three ways in which the two of you may bond. Instant connection, instant attraction, instant emotion.  
  
  
  
For Bucky and Steve it was all three.  
  
  
  
Fours hours was all it took. Four hours, sat on Bucky's leather sofa and watching whatever movies or TV shows popped on the television. Innocent enough. They talked and talked, Steve had never felt it was so easy to talk to another person before this. Not even Sam. Overnight, the wet from the rain froze over and it began to snow, each flake sticking, clinging, to the ice. By dawn there was nearly four feet of snow outside and it was still building up.  
  
  
  
Steve woke in Bucky's bed. Bucky had slept on the sofa. He was sitting up and biting his nails. "You shouldn't do that, Bucky, biting your nails."  
  
  
  
Bucky jumped and looked at him, wide eyed. Smiling. "Why?"  
  
  
  
"Germs. You've got staphloco-something bacteria under them. 'Causes, like, infections and boils and stuff." Bucky snorted and asked him what that meant. "Get 'em in your mouth and you'll get oral boils."  
  
  
  
"I'll just spread them on you. I'll lick your face while you sleep."  
  
  
  
"I'm calling the police."  
  
  
  
"You'd be better calling an ambulance."  
  
  
  
"I'm cold." Steve said, changing topic, and climbing beside Bucky underneath the thin sheet on the sofa. "We should make hot chocolate."  
  
  
  
Bucky didn't have any hot chocolate. Instead, they pulled on hats and scarves and gloves and headed out into the thick snow like mountaineers. There was a corner shop a minute's walk away that sold hot chocolate. Steve offered to buy it as a small payment towards Bucky's kindness, but Bucky wouldn't let him. They returned home even colder but once the water boiled and a steaming mug was placed in Steve's hands he was more than fine.  
  
  
  
"You get cold so easily for a New York boy." Bucky muttered, body so close to Steve's. "Every year on the news I see metre-deep snow all over the city."  
  
  
  
"I've never really been a Brooklyn boy. I think I'm from somewhere else."  
  
  
  
"Outerspace?"  
  
  
  
"Montreal." Steve smiled. “Like you.”

  
  


“I’m actually Romanian,” Bucky said, laughing.  
  
  


Steve ran a finger around the rim of his mug, hand warming from the heat and china humming under his touch.  


  
  
"The trains are going to be cancelled for maybe another week if the snow carries on." Bucky explained, looking over to the TV where the weather reports flew in every minute, each report claiming the snow would worsen. "You might end up stuck in Montreal with me."  
  
  
  
"I don't mind. I like this city. I like you. We can drink hot chocolate and make snow angels outside. Hey, remember when you first saw me, you called me ‘kid’. Why?”

  
  


“Thought you were, like, eighteen.”

  
  


“I’m almost twenty-one.”

  
  


“Wow, huge difference.” Bucky retorted. “I’m nearly twenty. But you’re still the tiny one.”

  
  


Steve elbowed him. “We’re both kids though, really.”

  
  


Bucky didn't reply. Why would he need to? The day passed, darkness sweeping up the sky once more. And in the freezing winter air, Bucky was like a torch. Steve couldn't leave him or he got too cold. Bucky didn't seem to mind, even when his head fell on the younger man's shoulder. They slept in the same bed. It felt natural.  
  
  
  
Falling.  
  
  
  
In the snow. They went out the next day. Bucky chased him and threw snowballs. Like they were kids again; it was ridiculous and fleeting and perfect. Bucky was perfect. Steve fell in the snow. He would have made a snow angel, but Bucky fell on top of him before he could move. They lay there, laughing, everything was too cliché, and Bucky said—  
  
  
  
—Angel.  
  
  
  
You're an Angel.  
  
  
  
Falling.  
  
  
  
The week played out like that. Like soft notes on a piano, no tune, no melody, just pretty sounds. On the fourth day, they kissed. No one mentioned it. On the sixth day they kissed again, and Bucky said—  
  
  
  
—you're an Angel.  
  
  
  
Steve kissed him. Again, again, more, again. Bucky was so beautiful. He fell. With each deep kiss and each trace of fingers along skin, they opened up to each other about everything—broken childhoods, longings and losses. Is it possible to fall in love in seven days? He did, he was sure, and when he told Bucky he was sure, teary eyes and dry throat, Bucky said—  
  
  
  
—Steve, I think I love you too.  
  
  
  
Steve stayed with Bucky until the snow entirely cleared away. Until the ground was made of brown and grey again, and not even a spec of white or dot of ice, like the chit of a china plate, could be found. It was any excuse to stay with Bucky. He travelled back to Brooklyn. He told his few friends, everyone, I need to move to Montreal. He did. Montreal was home. Bucky.  
  
  
  
He next saw Bucky at the younger’s doorstep, heavy suitcase at his own feet, and they kissed again. Four years passed. Each minute with Bucky he fell a little deeper in love. Each kiss, each touch, each breath. Each time Bucky returned from college and curved up behind him on the sofa. Each time Steve came home and found Bucky sleeping at his desk, lips curled over the end of his pencil, hair waved after a shower. Each time Steve woke on a Saturday beside him, and they explored Montreal together. Every corner, ever cafe and every street singer.  
  
  
  
They liked dancing, sometimes, even when no music played. In the kitchen. In the living room. In their new apartment, until they fell onto the same old sofa Steve had refused to rid of. Even now, it sits in their house. They danced in the bedroom, and Steve liked it most when they ended up in the bed, Bucky kissing him into the sheets.  
  
  
  
In 2019, Steve woke and stretched out, reaching for Bucky. He wasn't there. Steve left the bedroom to find Bucky stood before the television, jaw dropped and skin a shade paler.  
  
  
  
"War has been confirmed," Bucky whispered loudly, "Russia and the U.S., o-or China, maybe, I don’t understand-”  
  
  
  
Falling. That's what happened. To Beijing. It fell, each building plummeting down. Steve didn't know why they had to fight. He felt disgusted by it all, but at least nothing happened to them. How selfish. Three months and South Korea, Canada and the U.S. sided. Japan too. More countries. More and more chose a side. The world, which had finally slowed to a steadiness not seen in centuries, had erupted once more. The Third World War.  
  
  
  
And then Bucky said, "I'm going to fight."  
  
  
  
"No." Steve shook his head, and fell. The kitchen tiles were cold and hard against his knees. "No, Bucky, God no."  
  
  
  
"Babe, they said it'll be over by Christmas. I'll be in Japan or wherever, but I'll be home by Christmas."  
  
  
  
Two years. Bucky returned once. Steve spent every second looking out of the window, each winter when Bucky promised the fires would go out, searching for the marks in the snow where he and Bucky fell down long ago, happy. They were gone. He tried to join once but they told him he was too thin, too weak, too sickly. Montreal wasn't bright and pretty anymore. Those muted lights, planes. The clouds, smog. Steve waited. Read his letters, replied, and waited. He barely slept. Waited. Barely ate. Waited. Cried. Waited. Panicked, let Sam hold him until he could breathe once more and—  
  
  
  
—waited.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
"What's happened in Kyoto?" Steve says, snapping back to reality once Sam has caught his breath.  
  
  
  
"A whole load...fucking blitz, Steve. Mass bombings. All over the city. E-Every square inch on fire." Sam sobs, desperately, against Steve's shoulder. Steve bites his lip hard until it bleeds just to hold back a scream. "It's Devil's Night today, they said, and the enemy made a fucking light show out of it."  
  
  
  
Steve shudders. Bucky is most likely in Japan right now. Oftentimes he's in Japan unless he's sent on those terrifying missions to China or Russia. Gun slung over his neat uniform. Artificial. Weak knees and dirty clothes and chapped skin, insomnia, fear, shell shock. That is the reality, right? But Steve has to pray that Bucky is, well...  
  
  
  
...anywhere but Kyoto.  
  
  
  
"Steve, God. Steve, Steve. Clint...he was...he's in Kyoto!"  
  
  
  
Time freezes once more.   
  
  
  
Clint, Clint Barton, a wonderful man. Sam's own home - his lover, Steve's good friend. Has he...maybe...  
  
  
  
Steve feels sick. His stomach twists, violently, and knots.  
  
  
  
There is one more thing about Clint Barton:  
  
  
  
He and Bucky are in the same division.  
  
  
  
"Oh, Sam, no." Steve shakes now, frantically. "God, no, fucking-"  
  
  
  
Bile rises from his stomach. He runs to the bathroom and empties the scraps of his week's meals into the toilet. Sam comes with him and hugs him from behind, crying into his back. They've never cried so much like this before. How are they so helplessly clueless?

  
  
  
That's the thing about war.  
  
  
  
You have silence. On the scales, both sides are level. Silence surrounds the world like a buzz. All planes are parked at bases in their countries, or in ally bases. Soldiers walk back and forth, back and forth, until their feet are numb. They walk and watch winter melt into a blooming spring, where each year the cherry blossoms are a shade less pink, then summer blazes. Like fire. The sun hurts, sweaty skin under thick uniform, but they must walk. Come Autumn and the leaves fall. Then rain, soaking them until their skin is blistered. And winter Bucky always said was best. But Steve knows he suffers just as much in winter as in any other season.  
  
  
  
Then on the other scale. Violence.  
  
  
  
Alarms blare like a screech. Gas, gas! Frantic running, boys put your fucking gas masks on. Try to breathe, inhale, exhale. Oh, but one boy was caught in the attack. His eyes go white and he chokes, lungs frothing and vomit creeping from his mouth. What a shame, he was a good soldier, now throw him in the pile with the others. But you don't forget those white, bloodshot eyes. Bucky said this. And then you're told to walk, not run, into the machine gun range. It's like those video games kids play innocently. What fun, great fucking graphics. What a lie. Throw them out on a battlefield and see if they agree. Men around you get shot down one by one. Ha, how weak. Couldn't even make it through the war.  
  
  
  
Oh, Bucky wrote about the noise too. The bombs and the sirens, they get to you. You wake at night screaming. Shell shock. Men have panic attacks constantly, severely. You wake up screaming or you wake up to someone else screaming. Shut up, says another soldier, this ain't the First World War, imagine what fucking trench foot and chronic diarrhoea was like. Don't complain. Don't complain.  


 

And when Bucky lost his arm—a part of him died that day. All they did was replace it with a metal one.

 

  
  
That's the reality. That's why Steve has barely slept, knowing what Bucky is going through. Because you have two sides of war. The people who fight and the people who don't. During war, the ones who don't are forgotten and left alone. So clueless in this maze of madness. And that's where Steve and Sam are. Sick and fucking tired of being so scared.  
  
  
  
The two of them move to the sofa where it is most comfortable. Warmest. They hold each other. Two lost, lost lovers. They cry, even more, and they don't listen to the news. Just each other, until they cry themselves to sleep. In dreams, you'd think the pain is over. It's not.  
  
  
  
Day and Night are nothing but nightmares.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
2021.10.31  
  
  
  
Steve tears his eyes open, painfully, to darkness and Sam. The two things left. It is the next day, and no more has been learned. Steve cannot unravel himself from his reside in Sam's touch, in fear that he'll die. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad—  
  
  
  
—Babe, stop thinking like that, I'll be home by Christmas, I promise. I'm OK, the war is slowing and I'm doing good. We're winning, love, I can't wait to see you again. Lies.  
  
  
  
Falling.  
  
  
  
That's what it feels like. Again. Steve is a body, nothing more, and the ground beneath him caves all of a sudden. Nothing below him but a mouth of darkness. Calling out for him. He falls like always but no good can come of this. It's just him and nothing and maybe Sam can come along if he'd like. To the end. Oblivion. That's all war brings along.  
  
  
"S-Steve, we should..." Sam is at loss for words. What a ridiculous sight he is: red rings surrounding his eyes like paint, redder veins darting towards his pupils. His lips are raw too. Bitten. He's chewed at them like meat and out seeps the blood. Underneath those crimson eyes are bags of purple clashed against his sickeningly paler skin.  
  
  
  
Steve must look the same.  
  
  
  
Sam switches on the news, his bones cracking like rusted metal just to reach out for the remote.  
  
  
  
"Sounds like you need oil on those joints." Steve calls, now in the kitchen. No one laughs. Just days ago Sam would have rolled his eyes and chuckled. But Sam doesn't even reply.  
  
  
  
His response: Now in, obliteration. The end of the war may be here. Kyoto and most of Tokyo have been destroyed. Nothing beside remains. Barren and bare. Sam sobs on the sofa and Steve clutches a knife in his hand. He places it back down, no time to cook breakfast, and moves back over to his friend. They spend hours watching the news. Knowing nothing. Not a shred. Steve's friends in Brooklyn call, I'm OK Natasha, Bucky will be fine. Clint’s parents call, I know, I know, all we can do is wait and see, hope for the best. Bucky's parents don't call. They never agreed with Steve, haven't spoken to Bucky in years.  
  
  
  
The two men, all cried-out, find themselves falling asleep on that sofa to the static buzz of the TV. The last time Steve meets eyes with Sam that night he wonders if the other boy is playing those sweet memories of times with his lover just as Steve is.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
2021.11.01  
  
  
  
Steve wakes with a start.  
  
  
  
A knock cracks smartly against the door and Sam snaps back to life. He turns to look at Steve unsurely. If there were any tears left, Steve would cry right now. Who's at the door? Could it be—  
  
  
  
—Bucky! You're back just before Christmas, thank goodness, what a happy ending.  
  
  
  
Steve slides the lock and finds an unknown man stood outside instead, dressed in his uniform. Steve sees the dark hair sticking out from his cap, and the small tuft of shirt untucked behind him. Perfection, well, it no longer exists.

  
  


"Hello?" Steve says, voice so quiet and so broken. The man bows and holds out a small yellow envelope. A letter? No, Bucky's letters were white like snow.  
  
  
  
"The war may be over by tomorrow. Barnes is one of the bravest soldiers we've ever had." Then the man is gone before Steve has breathed. He doesn't shut the door before opening the envelope. He peels back the cover to reveal an off-white, borderline yellow, slip of paper.  
  
  
  
"Steve?" Sam's words just fade to white noise. On the slip is printed writing, a deep brown shade, neat and organised unlike war. Steve sweats at his temple, and drops down to his knees. The wooden floor bruises, but he's felt pain a million times worse. He feels it now. His eyes roll down, slowly, until they meet with the words printed on the paper:  
  
  
  
We regret to inform you, says the slip, that Bucky Barnes is reported missing since the Kyoto bombings yesterday. We are sorry to say he may have—  
  
  
  
Steve throws up. On himself, on the floor inside and outside of his apartment. It's mostly just water. He has never felt this level of pain in all his life, never felt so hurt. And if he wasn't already pained and lonely, now the knife has been twisted and he is completely alone. Sam carries him to the bath. They bathe together.  
  
  
  
"We could end it." Steve says, and Sam shakes his head, eyes wincing shut. "We could end it if we just..."  
  
  
  
His eyes focus on the window. They're five stories up. They could just jump.  
  
  
  
Falling.  
  
  
  
Oh, just like the slip of paper. Out of his hands, like sand in an hourglass. Steve doesn't want to see it again. Steve knows more than he used to. He doesn't know the point in war. He knows Bucky. He knows Bucky thought joining the war would be...protection. Look what happened. It feels like Steve was gripping onto a fistful of sand and over these last two years the grains have just slipped through his fingers and now there is nothing left. Bucky, and even Clint, and all of their division, have been killed.  
  
  
  
Steve screams.  
  
  
  
He cannot cry, there are no tears, so all he can form is this piercing scream that echoes through the bathroom. He falls forward, arms hitting the sides of the bath and back hitching up and down. He dry-retches, throwing up air at this point. Sam moves forward in the bath and holds him, screams a little himself. Sam and Steve have nothing left to do now but hold each other. Their life has become like the carcass of Kyoto, torn ligaments of buildings and sprained roadwork. Everything is twisted and wrong and broken. Their lives are over. Steve doesn't know the details about Sam and Clint’s love, but when Steve looks into Sam's eyes and sees his own pain reflected in them he knows. He and Sam are suffering all the same.  
  
  
  
That's the thing about war. Suffering.  
  
  
  
Painted on every wall. And Sam and Steve are caught up in the net right now. Steve wonders: did Bucky suffer? God, he doesn't fucking know! It's like the last few years were spent searching for answers and the only one he found was that Bucky—  
  
  
  
Bucky has fallen, in a Far East land.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
**Part** **II -** **The** **Irony**  
  
  
  
2021.11.02  
  
  
  
The next morning, the fog hangs thicker. Sliding and slithering around the rooftops, creeping at windows as if it is trying to break its way in. Heavy plumes of smog wrap around Steve's apartment like hands ready to choke him. A charcoal coloured smoke, damp and breathless. Steve wakes curled up around Sam. The smaller man slept with his back against Sam’s chest. Sam cried in the night, and he doesn't know that Steve knows. But Steve felt the tremors and heard the way his throat made the lightest sorrowful moans.  
  
  
  
Sam is grieving, and Steve has to start the process too.  
  
  
  
Bucky is inside Steve's soul. His entire existence and all those beautiful, tear-jerking memories of happy days and simplistic kisses in the morning, of music on the radio and Bucky's hands on Steve's hips as they swayed, of fingers threaded together even in public, because Steve was Bucky's everything and the looks people threw mattered a million times less than him. Everything, everything, all that love and all that perfection is...  
  
  
  
...it isn't dead.  
  
  
  
Bucky is dead, somewhere. Ashes, Steve likes to imagine that. Not a shattered skeleton, chits of shoulder blades and blown skulls, unhinged jaws and faces bloody or deranged. No. Bucky is ashes. Kyoto will grow again. All the buildings and all the wildlife will grow again and Bucky's ashes will be part of the trees. Yes, the memories live on. Not only in the roots of Kyoto now, but they're sewn to Steve's soul. Intricate stitches that no one will ever find, pages of words that only Steve can decipher, reels of film that only Steve can watch over and over when he feels lonely. The soul is eternal. Even after death, Steve will continue loving Bucky.  
  
  
  
"I can never love another person." Sam says, later on, when the sky is brighter. Still, that thick fog covers out any light. Steve doesn't reply to him.  
  
  
  
But what will be of Steve now? He's lost it all. His home. He is...nothing.  
  
  
  
He'll wake up every morning with tears streaming down his cheeks because all he needs is one peck on the cheek from those beloved lips. Oh God, and his voice. He'll never hear the way in which Bucky spoke. His soothing voice, sweet and gentle. He can only remember.  
  
  
  
He can't imagine this. The pain of being alone is already too much. Sam's arms don't work, and when Steve holds Sam it feels like he's holding a shell. They are two hollow beings now.  
  
  
  
"I'm trying to tell myself things will be OK." Steve mutters, burying his face in the crook of Sam's neck. He imagines Sam is Bucky. But he feels too different. He's not the boy Steve is in love with.  
  
  
  
"They aren't..." Sam whispers to himself as well as in response to Bucky. "They never will be."  
  
  
  
Sam's small hands move up and down his back, grazing the ruts of his spine. The touch is so alien and so wrong. And, although it offers a kind of comfort in the form of friendship, Steve knows he's never going to feel Bucky's hands touch him like this - or in any way at all. That thought is what hurts the most. He's never going to be able to touch the man that he loves again. Bucky is now abstract, a feeling.  
  
  
  
A past.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
2021.11.03  
  
  
  
Another knock sounds at the door. Steve is sick of knocking. He's sick of that sound as the wood cracks beneath a man's fingers. But this time the knock is softer. He stirs in his bed and peels his body from around Sam. The boy continues sleeping, and Steve reaches down to soothe him when he stirs once, just a light trace of his finger along Sam's cheek. Steve walks to the door hesitantly. He hopes to God that he doesn't receive another one of those yellow slips. If he gets anymore of those he's sure his shred of strength he has left will fade away. He won't be able to carry on living. So he prays, because he can't die. He has to stay with Sam.  
  
  
  
Again, he slides the lock on the door, so slowly, and pulls the door open just a fraction. Suddenly he sees a flash of uniform and—  
  
  
  
Bucky?  
  
  
  
"Good Morning," Says a postman, not the one Steve usually sees, but he's dressed in the same uniform, "I apologise but there has been a postage delay the past few days." Of course there has, the world has been in mourning. "These were supposed to be sent over from Japan a few days back." Steve nods slowly and takes a bundle of papers and letters from the man's hands.  
  
  
  
The postman bows once and leaves. Not as abruptly as when the soldier delivered that slip a few days ago. Steve holds the paper in his hand and shuts the door. The first thing he reads is the cover of a notebook which says _Bucky_ _Barnes_ in the boy's familiar writing. Steve, despite everything, smiles.  
  
  
  
He decides not to wake up Sam so he can read them. These letters are more personal. Like the intricate past woven throughout Steve's mind and soul. Sam might look at them one day but right now they are for Steve and Steve only.  
  
  
  
The first item is a notebook, as Steve figured, and inside are hundreds of diary entries. Steve makes sure Bucky specifies that he is allowed to read them, because Steve wouldn't want to invade his privacy. He flies through the thin, worn pages of ink until he sees it. His name. If you should read this, Steve, don't worry too much. I've described so many horrors in this diary but once I come home none of them will matter.

 

The next item seems to be a separate bundle of papers. Poems. Odes and Sonnets and Lyric poems. Steve knows Bucky was an educated man but he never knew Bucky had a talent in writing. Steve skims the words written down, and he won't specify what they say, but he cries. A mixture of happy and sad and sentimental.  
  
  
  
There is a small sketchbook beneath the poems, and when Steve pulls it open he finds a small polaroid photograph of himself, and cries even harder. He imagines Bucky crying whenever he was alone, pressing the photo to his forehead and trying to imagine Steve was there with him. He must have been so lonely. After the page with the photograph are more pages filled with beautiful sketches of Steve. A particularly perfect one is an ink drawing of Steve lay down in the snow, looking up at Bucky with the most beautiful smile, arms spread out ready to make a snow angel. Steve knows that day, because it was the day he never made the snow angel, for Bucky fell on top of him first. There are smudges in the thin lines of ink on this drawing where Bucky's tears dripped onto the page, and Steve makes new smudges when his own tears fall there too.  
  
  
  
The final thing in the bundle is an envelope as white as snow. Another one of Bucky's letters. Steve is used to this. He pulls it open and takes out the lined sheet inside, date reading October 29th, a day before Bucky died. It takes Steve a very long time to read the letter, choking out sobs over almost every single word.  
  
  
  
The words that hurt the most are the ones slipped between all the others, saying, Steve, I love you, eternally, so no matter what happens just know I'll never, ever let anything stop me from loving you.  
  
  
  
Sam wakes when Steve lets out a particularly loud cry. He comes into the room quietly and doesn't read or look at any of the things spread out on the sofa. He respects Steve and Bucky's privacy. He wraps two arms around Steve and holds him until Steve stops crying. Now Sam's touch doesn't feel as painful. It offers a lot more comfort now, somehow. Even when they go back to bed at night, and Steve closes his eyes and snakes two arms around Sam, he replays those words throughout his mind again and again until he knows them as fluently as his own language.  
  
  
  
Eternally.  
  
  
  
Somewhere is Bucky's soul, and wherever it is, he is still unconditionally in love with Steve Rogers. And with that thought, Steve finally manages to get a proper night's sleep.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
Sometimes it does hurt. Well, many times it does hurt. But pain is just a thing we have to experience as human beings. Steve gets on with life.  
  
  
  
He and Sam stick together in that apartment. They get jobs again and they move on with life. Steve even moves to Manhattan to start fresh. And although beneath everything they still have those wounds from losing the men they love, they carry on. Giving up was something Bucky never did, and Steve won't give up for his sake.  
  
  
  
He breaks down often. Sometimes thrice a week. He could be walking through the busy streets of Manhattan and meet eyes with someone who has Bucky's lips, and he would drop to his knees and wail. Someone would come to him and they'd already know. Oh, he's a widow of sorts. You can tell, easily, when someone has been affected by that war. Sam always comes and gets him, takes him home, and holds him tight. Steve usually reads Bucky's letter at that point. Or traces his eyes over the sketches Bucky drew.  
  
  
  
Kyoto is rebuilt by the end of 2022, and the two boys take a flight there. They visit a war graveyard and sure enough find the graves of their lovers. There are graves in Montreal too, but these are more important. This is where they fell. There is a small peony growing where Bucky's grave is, and Steve wonders if Bucky's ashes helped it grow.  
  
  
  
He wakes up some nights with terrifying nightmares of death. Of the horrors of war that Bucky wrote about in his diary. But they're just dreams. Bucky and Clint both died instantly. An explosion, and that was it. No pain. Sam has those dreams too, much worse than Steve's at times, but they both make it through.  
  
  
  
Oftentimes Steve finds himself sat on a windowsill again. No longer is there a thick smog, not even in Manhattan. Once more there is the clear sky and the sunlight, even at times during late months of autumn does Steve see blue. And many nights Steve looks out at the pricks of glowing lights across the expanse of black above him. He's known this sight for years after spending so long looking out. But there's a difference now.  
  
  
  
Steve doesn't know exactly when he spotted it, but there seems to be a new star in the sky glowing a million times brighter than all the others. And he wonders, smiling, if when he dies a second star will appear beside it.  
  
  
  
♢  
  
  
  
29th October, 2021.  
  
  
  
Dearest Steve,   
  
  
  
One of my friends died yesterday. He was a man I've talked about before, Peter. You remember me talking about him right? He was so young. Only nineteen. I mean, I'm only a few years older but it made me think of when I first met you. I was nineteen. I can't imagine myself back then ever going to war.  Peter was shot and survived, but he died on the way to the hospital. I think he had a girlfriend in Queens. I hope she's OK. I worry that she's going to suffer all by herself in that busy place. And it makes me think about things, ridiculous things, Steve. I think that, what if I die? What happens to you?  
  
  
  
God, Steve, I'm not going to die but if I ever did, promise me something, please. Promise me you'll keep going. Don't think you can come and join me or whatever, in death. Keep living, I'd watch you everyday, I don't know from where but I would. In the sky, maybe. But Steve, if I died you wouldn't be alone. Steve, I love you, eternally, so no matter what happens just know I'll never, ever let anything stop me from loving you.  
  
  
  
So as long as I love you, keep going, OK?  
  
  
  
I won't die. I made you a promise that I'd stay safe. I'll live to see you again, I swear on it. I don't know when I'll see you again but I will. I miss you so much I feel the most excruciating pain. I will see you again and you can trace my scars and soothe my injuries. You can cure me, when I get home. We'll meet again. They said it will be over by Christmas. I'm not promising you that because I won't make promises that I can't keep.  
  
  
  
But I'll see you again, that's my promise.  
  
  
  
We can kiss every morning and every night and, if you want, start again. All over. We'll build that happiness and trust again. We can travel the world if you'd like. I'll take you anywhere, as an apology for leaving you. I love you so much, Steve, and I'll give you the world when I return to you.  
  
  
  
I love you. I can't say it any other way. I love you so much you won't ever be able to understand how I can love you to such a great extent. But I do. You're my everything, and I'll come back home and you can make me whole again.  
  
  
  
Love and eternity and everything I can offer,  
  
  
  
Bucky.

 

♢

 

2024.06.13

 

Steve walks blank-minded down East 56th Street. Work has been tiring recently and you can see it in his eyes. His boss granted him a half-day today and so he plans to pick up some lunch and walk to the subway for a train home. The sky is a pale blue, warming, and it reflects in the water beside him. Tomorrow, he thinks, he’ll come jogging before work. Over the last few years Steve has worked up quite a build. A gym membership and some motivation worked suprisingly well—soon he’ll be showing off a set of solid abs, as good as Bucky’s were.

 

The blankness in his mind is disrupted by a loud bang in the distance. It’s hard to conjure a sensical thought when greeted with this sort of thing. It reminds him of the day the third war broke out, when Bucky sat at their TV in Montreal with shock-horror spread across his face. His phone beeps at his hip and then he hears it: chaos.

 

He runs forward towards the United Nations Headquarters from where crowds of people seem to be escaping. On the side of the building a gaping hole has blasted out onto the street below, like a wide, burning mouth, blowing smoke out to the Manhattan skies. The sound of ambulances and police cars can be heard around him; it’s hard to tell what’s happening. Seemingly a bomb has been set-off: thickness builds in his throat and it’s nothing he hasn’t felt before. 

 

Steve runs further in direction of the chaos, tempted by it for a reason he can’t decipher. Then, like that, he bumps into something, someone, feeling hard metal clash against his arm. He turns left.

 

A masked man looks back at him, frozen. He has long, wavy hair and stubble and deep-set eyes and lips that Steve would recognise from miles and miles away and—

 

“Bucky?” It takes seconds to realise he’s even asked the question. The man pulls his mask down and sure enough, Steve is right. He’s never felt so _right_ in his life.

 

Bucky looks back at him like he’s been hit with dejá vu unlike never before. The two stare at each other for what feels like hours but must be less than five seconds. Swallowed in the moment, baricaded from all the alarms and shouting and gunshots.

 

Bucky’s lips tug open. He says, “Who?”

 

And like that, Bucky is gone. 

 

Steve is left feeling stripped naked in a raging crowd. Bucky. Bucky Barnes. Bucky, my Bucky, is alive. Steve’s phone beeps again and he reaches into his hip pocket. A phone call—he answers immediately.

 

”Have you seen the news?” Sam says.

 

”I’m right outside the building.”

 

”No,” Sam is breathless as if he’s ran a marathon, “No, Steve. About the man who they’re after, the explosion was his, they think. There are pictures and they’re calling him ‘The Winter Soldier’, b-but I know-”

 

”Bucky,” Steve replies, fist clenched, “Bucky is alive and he’s come home.”

**Author's Note:**

> sequel ? we’ll have to see :)
> 
> my [twitter](https://twitter.com/eliosriver)


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